Heartland Replies to ‘Science’

The August 5 issue of Science, the venerable journal published by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, contains an article by Sara Reardon that discusses the controversy over how climate change is presented in K-12 science classrooms.

First, the good news: Ms. Reardon reports that an informal survey of members of the National Earth Science Teachers Association found “climate change was second only to evolution in triggering protests from parents and school administrators.” This is great news, since it reveals that parents are rising up against the bias and sheer propaganda that often masquerade as science when climate is discussed in schools.

More good news: “Some teachers … called climate change ‘just a theory like evolution’ or said they firmly believed that opposing views should be presented with equal weight.” We can only wish more teachers recognized this is the proper way climate should be addressed.

The bad news is that Ms. Reardon refers to anyone expressing reservations about the certainty of predictions of man-made global warming as “climate change deniers.” This is inaccurate, as no one, least of all those who ask questions about the theory of man-made global warming, deny that climate changes. It is also a kind of name-calling that should be below the dignity of a science journal. Is Ms. Reardon intentionally comparing global warming “skeptics” to Holocaust deniers? It surely seems to appear that way. Shame on her.

Ms. Reardon claims some teachers “feel” that “science courses should reflect the best scientific knowledge of the day, and offering opposing views amounts to teaching poor science.” These teachers need to study the issue more closely: Opposing views are pervasive in the scientific literature on climate change, and surveys show there is no agreement – no consensus – on many of the most important issues in the debate.

Ms. Readon then refers to a mailing conducted by The Heartland Institute in 2009 of a publication titled “The Skeptic’s Handbook,” by Joanne Nova, which Heartland mailed to the presidents of every public school board in the U.S. This was one of a series of mailings we did and continue to do to educators and school board members in the U.S. as well as in Canada.

But how does Ms. Reardon refer to The Heartland Institute? As a 27-year-old national nonprofit research and education organization? As a widely recognized and respected source of objective analysis on a wide range of topics, backed by advisory boards of more than 300 academics and elected officials? Or perhaps as a principled advocate of free-market ideas supported by the voluntary contributions of some 1,800 donors?

No, none of this. Ms. Reardon apparently believes the only thing readers need to know about Heartland can be expressed in six words: Heartland “has received significant funding from Exxon-Mobil.” That’s it. No information about how much support we received (never more than 5 percent of our budget), or when we received it (not since 2006, three years before the mailing to school board presidents took place).

These facts are readily available on our Web site and we’ve repeated them again and again when others have tried to attack our funding sources, rather than the veracity of our research. It isn’t good journalism to conceal these facts from readers, is it? Shame on Ms. Reardon once more.

The reason the teaching of climate change is so controversial is because environmental advocates, many of them coming from the liberal end of the political spectrum, are using the subject to advance their political agendas. The goal should be to get politics out of the classroom, not protect it by banning debate and censoring objective sources of research.

Groups such as The Heartland Institute and scientists such as David Legates and Willie Soon (who also are mentioned in the article) are attempting to return the debate to real science. K-12 teachers who are looking for balanced and scientifically rigorous information on climate change can find it on one of Heartland’s Web sites, www.heartland.org/issues/environment, or at any of the Web sites and blogs listed there.

Joseph Bast is president and CEO of The Heartland Institute. Bast is the coauthor of 12 books, including Rebuilding America's Schools (1990), Why We Spend Too Much on Health Care (1992), Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism (1994), and Education & Capitalism (2003). His writing has appeared in Phi Delta Kappan, Economics of Education Review, Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, The Cato Journal, USA Today, and many of the country’s largest-circulation newspapers.

The “majority” of the scientists simply watched as their colleagues polluted and poisoned the planet with their pesticides and cancer causing chemicals that all originated from their labs. That fact alone plus 25 years of studies and warnings from the scientists proves to this planet lover, that these lab coat consultants exaggerated and exploited Human CO2 fears. They were not the saints we wanted them to be and it’s not a lie to study worst case scenarios.

Sat_cold

so you r sayin scientists went to factories & started burning chemicals??or scientists discovered fuel just to make mess of ozone layer??hmmm very very thoughtful analysis dumbass!!! scientists discover things-govs, ppl, organisations misuse them..ermm.. nuclear technology- it wasnt invented to create bombs..govs invested and paid ppl to use this tech to create bombs. science is a good thing but if you have bad ppl using end product of science for evil means- dont blame science. you must be diseased with god virus or creationism virus otherwise i dont see any reason to spatter science. btw, b honest n look at your life style, do you use iphone?comptuter? car? tv? etc etc etc..all given to yu by science you farkin hypocrite!!

Anonymous

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. It is the world’s largest general scientific society, with 126,995 individual and institutional members at the end of 2008,[1] and is the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science, which has a weekly circulation of 138,549.[2]

If you go to Wikepedia you see this description of AAAS and its journal Science. How times have changed. AAAS has lowered itself into a propaganda institute similar to many other national academies. Using ad hominem arguments for debate shows stupidity and ignorance and Sara Reardon displays these attributes.
James H. Rust, Professor

http://twitter.com/denisdubay Denis DuBay

Careful study by scientists has established that CO2 from human activities has increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, and that this increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is causing an energy imbalance to occur on the planet – less energy escapes than enters from sunlight, thus the planet gains energy, warms up, and climate changes. Despite the misinformation spread by folks with varied motivations, this basic science is simply not in dispute. Repeating a lie over and over will make people believe it, but it’s still a lie.

Baron Greeves

That’s just the thing: it has not been “established” that the increase in man-made CO2 levels is causing any meaningful change or harm. It simply IS in dispute. CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas (it only absorbs IR on a few small parts of the bandwidth – water vapor is a real greenhouse gas). Geologic records (after “careful study by scientists”) indicate that CO2 levels LAG temperature rises (think about that). The CRU email exposure shed some badly needed light into a very dark place, where science had clearly been horribly corrupted. Good, solid objections to this “science” being “established” go on and on (and if you don’t know them all, shame on you – I know the full case (or most of it) for AGW (and it is not “established”). Unlike you AGW zealots, most of us “deniers” don’t deny AGW, we question it – we say it might be real – do some real science now that isn’t based on computer models, the highly flawed hockey stick – and that has honest, rigorous peer review. This isn’t a popularity contest. If you zealots force us to warp the economy to “fix” a problem that either is mostly caused by nature, has no real harm, and/or can’t be stopped – the potential chaos would be disastrous.
(I don’t work for an oil company – and even if I did, can you name and explain the logical fallacy you’d be breaking by dismissing my argument using such an attack? Bet you can’t!)

Dvdfuss

Joe Wrote:

More good news: “Some teachers … called climate change ‘just a theory
like evolution’ or
said they firmly believed that opposing views should
be presented with equal weight.” We can only wish more teachers
recognized this is the proper way climate should be addressed.

I can hardly believe that anyone of intelligence would say anything was ‘just a theory like evolution.’ Holy mackerel, I’ll have to reconsider giving any credence to The Heartland Institute. A theory–especially a theory that has stood the test of time–is as close to fact that science will ever have and should be treated with enormous respect. Perhaps The Heartland Institute thinks that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside Evolution? If so, then they have lost all credibility. Also, no teacher or thinker should be forced to teach opposing views IF they are clearly inferior or not even scientific (like Intelligent Design or Creationism) except to dismiss them. However, on the AGW issue, there is no comparison between that and Evolution. Anthropogenic Global Warming is really a hypothesis, not a theory, and is much, much harder to validate than Evolution.